Gilbert Loves Anne of Green Gables
by Morte Rouge
Summary: A collection of one-shots based off of songs from "Anne & Gilbert." Gil's POV - I may not be continuing my Gilbert series, but I'm easing back into the fanverse.
1. Carried Away By Love

**In case anyone asks, I haven't seen the musical (I want to SO MUCH) but my soundtrack features Marla McLean and Peter Deiwick as the title characters.**

**-M.R.**

_**Carried Away By Love**_

Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe had many things in common, but just now one new thing was that their cups of happiness were both full: The promise of four years at Redmond, and therefore of a big and bright future, was enough to fill anyone's cup, heart, and mind with light and music.

Mere months before they were to leave, though, their cups overflowed. Diana Barry, Anne's bosom friend, and Fred Wright, one of Gilbert's best friends, announced their engagement to one another.

Caught up in dreams of authorship, Anne was first shocked, then angry, nostalgic, and finally sincerely happy at her best friend's sudden elevation to adulthood. But Gilbert, who had, after all, aided and abetted the (admittedly quiet) courtship, bypassed the first three emotions, and provided more aid to Diana and Fred's future happiness by talking Anne down from pushing Fred into the Lake of Shining Waters. Twice.

When Gilbert had offered to squire Anne to Diana and Fred's engagement party, they had naïvely assumed that as best friends to the respective betrotheds, they'd be granted diplomatic immunity.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

"Anne, darling!" Ruby Gillis darted off the dance floor to embrace her seated friend, giving Gilbert a warm (_too_ warm) smile in the process. "And Gilbert, too! How simply lovely to see you here! Of course you would be, though, since I know you two are best chums with Diana and Fred, and everyone knows that you're going to—But silly me! How rude I'm being! This is Sam Proctor, from Charlottetown, and—"

" 'Everyone knows that we're going to' what, Ruby?" Gilbert cut in apprehensively. He returned her smile, hoping it would soften whatever scruples had caused her to change tack. Granted, she _should_ have introduced her latest beau first of all, but still—Ruby was the least subtle girl in Avonlea.

"Oh, ah," stuttered Ruby, her smile going slack—then suddenly lighting up again, like a gas lamp turned up too quickly. "Well, Gertie Pye said Tillie Boulter said that now that your best friends were getting married, it was sure as gun's iron that you two were engaged, too."

Anne choked on her lemonade.

"I mean, you've always been so chummy with one another, and all," Ruby added, beginning to gabble. "So no one'd really be surprised, you know? Why Mrs. Lynde says you two were—were—" Ruby looked from Anne, who was coughing into her handkerchief, to Gilbert, whose face was as read as if he were choking, too, and sensed that she had created A Situation. Normally, Situations were fun to create, but this one made her unusually uncomfortable. She grabbed Sam's arm again, as the music started up again. "Ooh, this is one of my favorite new waltzes! Well, talk to you later!"

Gilbert glanced nervously at the tall girl in blue, seated beside him. Anne had stopped coughing, but her face was still buried in the handkerchief, and the bit of forehead Gilbert could see was bright red.

He sighed. It wasn't the first time tonight anyone had cast a knowing look or word in their direction, but Ruby was the first to say anything directly to either of them. Hopefully she was the last, too. Gilbert was pretty sure that if anyone else addressed them directly about being engaged, Anne would actually die of embarrassment. He wouldn't put it past her.

"Look at the lovers," he said, for lack of anything else to say, and for a need to be the first to verbalize the difference between himself and Anne, and "the lovers" (albeit with a pang). Gilbert didn't think he could stand it if _Anne_ had set that distinction. "Aren't they picturesque, dancing in the moonlight?"

At the words "picturesque" and "moonlight" (the sun had only set less than an hour ago), Anne's ears practically pricked up. She emerged from her handkerchief, smiling weakly at Gilbert, and looked in the direction he nodded. "They _are_ a picture, aren't they?" she said. "They look like they're under a spell, cast by the waltz music—carried away by love."

"Well, they look like they know it. See? They're not resisting their 'enchantment,' " Gilbert teased, playing along. He took a deep, steadying breath, but was careful to keep his tone light and casual as he continued, "I dare _you_ to dance with _me_, Anne Shirley! I mean—we two are far too sensible to get carried away by love, aren't we?"

"Sensible!" Anne exploded with laughter. "What a word to apply to a pair of kindred spirits like us! But I see what you mean. We may ramble over all of nature, you looking for fascinating plants and I for dryads, but you're no silly romantic, and now that I'm not a 'tragical' little girl any more, I only have a brief spell now and then—after I've been writing all day." Anne wrinkled her pretty nose, the secret envy of many an Avonlea girl, and the secret admiration of the male half of the population. "Although that happens more and more often recently. And I can't say I'm not enjoying it. Romance is a comforting thing, Gil."

"Writing all day…Like when you finished _Averil's Ideal_?"

Anne surveyed Gilbert with an appraising eye, sipping her lemonade. "Take care, Gil. I can't imagine you want to walk home alone covered in lemonade, do you?"

Gilbert scooted his chair back, hands raised in mock horror. "Then I suppose you don't want to dance with me, either?"

Anne laughed. "It's a tempting offer, you know. Look at the stars in the sky! They're reflected in those lovers' eyes," she explained, gesticulating at the whirling couples. "Their faces look like…like…like they remember their dreams at night. I never can remember my dreams in the morning. Or maybe I just spend so much time daydreaming that I don't have night-dreams. I don't know. But, Gil, those lovers are carried away by stars and dreams, and I don't—" Anne paused, as if aware that her voice had grown softer until she was almost soliloquizing. "Anyways, it's all a moot point, isn't it? We're not the kind inclined to get carried away!"

"Maybe we oughtn't to dance, anyways," Gilbert said ruefully. "You've—you've heard all the same things I heard, tonight. There's enough talk around us sitting here talking, without us getting up and dancing." He stretched in the tiny wicker lawn chair. "That's _one_ reason I'll be glad to leave Avonlea, at least for four years: Privacy's not allowed here."

"Mmm," said Anne, agreeably. "No, I accept your offer, Gil. Let's dance." She rose, brushing crumbs and leaves from the tree above them off of her voluminous skirts. "I mean, it isn't as though we'll fall under the same spell as everyone else."

Gilbert took the proffered hand, but the sharp contrast of Anne's words—whether innocuous or perspicacious—caused him a pang, not for the first time.

_I wonder if I can ever make her care for me…_


	2. Saturday Morning

_**Saturday Morning**_

Gilbert breathed in and out deeply, enjoying the effect of clear salty air on his lungs. The chilly air and chillier sea spray roused him fully from the bed he had left half an hour ago. How free and independent he felt—of duty, of worry, of everything—as he sat in the sand, heedless of damage to his clothes. How refreshed his mind was, especially with a book in his hands. And all that was needed was his weekly jaunt to the beach.

Saturday mornings were Gilbert's peacetime, his respite from hectic weeks spent keeping busy—as well as earning money for college. Of course he taught Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday, and Saturdays he tutored in the _afternoon_. The morning really was the only calm time of that entire day, because after tutoring on Saturday night Gilbert did the same thing he did every other night: marking papers, completing odd jobs—cleaning up around the house for his mother, lending an extra arm around the farm for his father. Oh, and of course, Sundays, Gilbert, fool that he was, taught Sunday school!

Which of course gave Avonlea girls _one more day_ per week to unabashedly ogle their handsome teacher.

But Saturday morning!

Usually Gilbert brought with him a veritable army of books (at the risk of opening his teacher satchel on Monday and sand spilling out and school girls giggling at him _much_ more than they already did). Today was no different: Crammed into Gilbert's bag were classical authors, such as Hippocrates and Socrates (medicine and philosophy being two of Gilbert's great, inanimate passions); _Macbeth_, which Gilbert was in the middle of reading; as well as _Don Quixote_, an old favorite; and an old medicine textbook purloined from a preceding Blythe doctor.

Just the other day, Gilbert recalled, he and Anne had discussed their shared love of reading and its possible significance as a means of temporary, figurative escape from humdrum Avonlea. In Anne's case this was clearly abundantly true; Gilbert knew that she had spent her entire life buried in books in order to escape grim realities. From this, also, had sprung her keen love of dramatics. Gilbert was still convinced Anne was destined for a career on the stage, and said so.

Anne had acknowledged the point, but been offended by the suggestion of such a socially rejected, improper profession. She had gotten very upset, with the queer combination of illogic and righteous indignation only Anne Shirley could manifest, and left.

He should, Gilbert reflected, be able to see these things coming by now.

The thought of Anne, especially an angry Anne, sobered Gilbert. Though thankful his life had been one of relative comfort and providence, he had his own measure of grim reality. So Gilbert put down _Macbeth_, which he'd barely skimmed, and did what he always did when he thought of Anne at the beach on a Saturday morning. He stripped off his trousers and shirt, shivering in his bathing suit, and ran into the chill water before he could give it a second thought. It really wasn't that cold, once you got used to it, and he rather doubted any water was cold enough to chill his ardor. But at this rate, Gilbert reflected wryly, he'd be extremely fit, pretty soon. Perhaps Anne—

By the time Gilbert resurfaced, he'd reminded himself that Anne was not the type to be impressed by a honed male physique, and that he was grateful for that. As for some girls in Avonlea who _were_ that simple-minded…

"Hello, Gilbert!"

Gilbert considered submerging his head again. If he stayed underwater, perhaps she'd decide she had only imagined him there, and go away again—but if he stayed underwater just waiting for _this _girl to leave, he'd probably drown. "Hello, Josie, my…old friend. What an…unexpected treat," he suggested, hoping that she'd sense the barb under the polite words enough to leave him alone.

Josie Pye forbore to sit in the sand, but she most certainly did _not _leave Gilbert alone. She halted at the edge of the surf, wincing noticeably as the sand did nasty things to her kid boots. "I was just passing by. It's so good to see you! Listen to that, coming from _me_, your next-door neighbor, eh?We used to be such chums when we were young, didn't we? I feel as though we don't even much talk any more!"

"Funny, that," said Gilbert. "We'll talk sometime, then. As it is, I don't really feel comfortable coming out of the water while you're here. I'm only in my bathing suit, you see, and—"

"Ooh, is it new? Well, let's see it!" Josie stood on her tiptoes, as if trying to see downward through the water; Gilbert was thankful it had rained the night before, making the water murky. "Or is it too daring for a young lady's eyes? Gil, don't tell me you're not even decent!" Josie waggled her eyebrows at Gilbert.

"Josie," asked Gilbert, a disquieting fear stealing over his mind, "did you follow me here?"

Josie's face fell. "Aren't you glad to see me? Why would I _follow_ you here? That isn't like—I would never do—"

"Yes," said Gilbert wearily. "You would. And I don't understand why, when you of all people should know I'm spoken for." He was being blunter with Josie than ever before, but it was about time, wasn't it? Besides, the sooner she left, the sooner he could emerge from the water and nurse his numb feet back to life.

"You may be head-over-heels for Anne Shirley, but you can't really call yourself 'spoken for,'" Josie pointed out irritably. "Face it, no matter how long you've been smitten with her, she doesn't care a fig for you."

"You're not the first person to tell me any of this, you know," Gilbert said drily.

Josie's nostrils flared—in anger at the ruin of her boots, Gilbert was sure, as much as in frustration. "And I won't be the last. Gilbert, honey," her tone changed from sulky to coquettish in an entirely unsettling way, "your lips are turning blue. I'll just be on my way so you can come out of the water, shall I?"

"That's all I ever wanted!"

Josie Pye might be many things, but she was good at having the last word. "And I'll hold you to that promise of catching up sometime!" she crooned over one shoulder before she disappeared over a dune.

Gilbert swore under his breath—in frustration and because he was freezing—as he hurried to the thick towel he'd brought with him. Beginning college wouldn't solve the problem of Anne, and it'd deprive him of these Saturday mornings—but as far as Josie Pye was concerned, Gilbert felt that the sooner he left, the better.

At the very least, the people nagging him to give up on Anne would be new.


End file.
